If He Had Known
by Sarquestrian
Summary: "Secret Santa" gift for a friend. Nikola knew he could've saved her, if only she had told him about Doyle. Now, he's carrying her casket and learning that dealing with grief is a lot harder than he thought.


**Title: **"If He Had Known"

**Genre: **Angst, Romance, Tragedy

**Length: **996 words

**Rating: **PG for dark themes

**Characters: **Nikola Tesla, Emily Prentiss

**Prompt: **"Lauren" episode of Criminal Minds

**Note: **I thought this up while at a funeral. Is that bad?

He hadn't known about Doyle. If he had, then things would've ended a lot differently.

It had been a few years since he'd met Emily, and in that time, they'd fallen hard for each other. He'd been living with her for two of those years, and they'd been sleeping together for a little over that length of time, and both loving every minute they spent together. He'd always known that there were risks involved in loving her, that one stray bullet could take her away from him forever, but he'd never let that deter him. It was almost ironic that her death hadn't been an on-the-job occurrence after all.

Instead, it had been the fault of an old enemy from her past. A terrorist-turned-serial killer by the name of Ian Doyle, he'd been told, though her team had only actually called him about it when Emily first went missing. That was when they'd realized that her and their unsub were linked, and naturally, that made Nikola just as involved as any of them. Of course, he'd used and abused every resource at his fingertips, from Helen's contacts to Heinrich's computers to his own superhuman senses, but by the time they'd finally found her, it had been too late. She'd been stabbed through the gut with a stake, and Doyle was nowhere to be seen. Exactly six minutes later, in the ambulance, she'd flat-lined. The paramedics were able to revive her long enough to rush her into surgery, but from then on, he'd been forced to wait in the waiting room with the rest of her coworkers.

Four hours and twenty two minutes later, the announcement was made. She hadn't survived the surgery.

That was what brought him- alongside a few dozen of her closest friends, family, and colleagues- to a cemetery just outside of Washington D.C. on this particular, gloomy day. He, alongside agents Hotch, Reid, Morgan, Rossi, and Will, were pallbearers for her funeral service. A brief service had been held at the local Catholic church- she hadn't been religious, but she had roots in Catholicism, from what he understood- but most of the funeral was going to be at the grave site itself, they'd decided. She would've liked it better that way. She'd always felt uncomfortable in churches.

After the service, her casket- _Em's _casket- was loaded into the back of the funeral home vehicle to be taken to the cemetery at the head of the funeral procession. Upon reaching the cemetery, one by one, the pallbearers had stepped out of their vehicles and approached her casket once again, unloading it from the back of the car and beginning the long walk towards her grave site. She hadn't had one picked out before her death, so Nikola had chosen it for her. He'd picked a lovely little spot under a willow tree that had cost him half a fortune, but that had been well worth the price, in his mind. She would've loved it, and he would've done anything to have her alive and there with him, so that she could see it for herself. So that he didn't have to go on without her. So that he could hold her one last time...

It was there that he found himself right now, carrying her casket with Hotch to his right and Morgan directly behind him. Where the rest of the men were positioned, he wasn't sure, and he really couldn't care less right now. He'd carried Em before, of course, more times than he could count. Most of the time, she'd been squealing for him to put her down, and he'd tossed her onto their bed in response, always joining her mere moments later. A couple of times, she'd been wounded or asleep or otherwise vulnerable, and he'd been hovering over her protectively and, in some cases, carrying her to safety. He'd known getting into this relationship that he would outlive her by centuries at the very least, but he hadn't expected to have to carry her coffin to her final resting place. This.. this was too much.

It was only as they were lowering the casket to the ground in front of her neatly-dug grave, however, that he realized that something was amiss. He tried to brush it off as irrational hope, but as her teammates stepped back and turned to join the crowd of unfamiliar faces, he found himself unable to do the same. The weight of the casket, the smell, everything- it was all off. He didn't lose her. He couldn't have lost her. She had promised him she'd be his forever- he'd even started looking into ways to gain her immortality similar to Helen's or his own- and then she'd just _left _him. Just like that. It couldn't be possible. It couldn't be _his _Em in the casket he'd just carried. There must have been some mistake.

He was dully aware of someone- JJ, he thought- crouching beside him and resting a hand on his shoulder, trying to soothe him into joining her with everyone else while they buried Em. She was crying, he realized, but that wasn't enough to draw him out of his fit. Before anyone could protest- and the collective gasp of all those around him certainly indicated that there _was _some protest immediately afterwards- he had planted his hands firmly on the top of the casket and leaned over it, remaining there for a split second before throwing the top open entirely. He had to see her. He had to see her face, peaceful even in death, one last time, just to prove to himself once and for all that she was gone.

What he saw wasn't the face of Emily Prentiss. It wasn't even a woman.

It was one of Doyle's nameless goons, killed in the crossfire of her encounter with the terrorist less than a week before. Of course, Nikola made the connection almost instantly.

This wasn't just some mistake.

She was alive.


End file.
